I have been a student of the guitar for about nine years. I study at Indiana University and I am obtaining a degree in guitar performance. About a year ago I ran into a large problem. I started to become much more advanced in my study and I was playing my current guitar too often. This guitar was not durable enough take the constant playing and I was wearing out the cheaper hardware with which it was made. I asked my guitar teacher for some advice on how to go about buying a good guitar. He lent me a guitar that was made by Gregory Byers. Immediately after playing the guitar I fell in love with both its sound and feel, though it cost far more than I could afford. This left me wanting to find something more affordable that still delivered the same quality in sound, volume, and playability found in the Byers guitar. This seemed like an impossible task. However, merely by chance, I came across Lazarguitars.com and my search was then over.
I spent awhile back and forth with Mick through e-mail and on the phone asking an onslaught of questions to make sure my investment would be a sound one. After all, I hadn’t even held the guitar in my hands yet and, though the price was about 1/3 of his competitors, would still be paying a good amount of money. Though Mick seemed extremely informed, I would be making my investment on his word alone.
Six months after I ordered the guitar, I received it in the mail. Months of waiting and anticipation—and years of frustration with cheaper and less worthy guitars were finally over, I hoped. I tuned up the guitar and started playing. However, I must admit I was a little disappointed at first. The guitar didn’t have the brightness in sound that the Byers had, and the tone seemed a little thin. But after about twenty minutes or so of playing, the guitar started to come to life. I couldn’t believe my ears. The tone had suddenly warmed up, the volume was louder and the thickness of the sound filled the room with such a sweet tone that I couldn’t put the guitar down. I was jumping around in my playing from piece to piece wanting to hear how my pieces would finally sound on this guitar. I had to close my eyes and I was shaking from the excitement. I was having trouble playing some of my pieces because I was hearing the individual notes so clearly and the guitar was giving me the ability to be very expressive in my dynamics and tone control. Talking to Mick, he said that this would happen. The guitar would be brought out of the case and have to settle in its surroundings.
Over the past few months of having this guitar, I have become more used to its incredible sound and response and I have used it for many performances. A plethora of comments have come from people saying how incredible the guitar sounds and how beautiful its craftsmanship is. After this long I am more than satisfied with this incredible instrument. I keep getting better day-to-day and I finally have a guitar that will evolve while I evolve as a player. This amazing instrument has only brought me happiness and I can’t thank Mick enough for his great work.Duncan Baumgart